Season 11, Episode 1
- The Alexandrians head for Maggie’s former home to retake it from the Reapers.
The eleventh, and final, season premiere.
A large party stands on the roof of an abandoned military base, and using pulleys and ropes they lower a search party inside the base to scavenge a cache of MRE's. They exercise extreme caution as a large group of walkers are lying dormant inside. Though most of the MRE's are safely hoisted up to the roof party, the pulley fails and slashes Daryl, resulting in a drop of blood hitting a sleeping walker... resulting in the entire room's worth of walkers reviving and going for the kill. Luckily, the group manages to escape intact.
Upon returning to Alexandria, Maggie is delighted to be reunited with three Wardens, Duncan, Agatha and Frost - though she and Negan have an uneasy exchange as he helps bring in some of the scavenged supplies. However, even the stash of MRE's isn't enough, as Gabriel declares their food will only last them a week, and Alexandria is still in dire straits due to damaged infrastructure inflicted by the Whisperers. Maggie proposes returning to her former community of Meridian to take its' food supplies, but to do this, the group would have to take it back from the Reapers, the hostile group who conquered it and slaughtered many innocent people in the process.
Maggie begins leading a group consisting of Daryl, Elijah, Duncan, Agatha, Frost, Cole, Gage, Roy, Dog, Gabriel, and Negan, who she claims to want as a guide. As a storm rages during their trip through Washington, D.C., Maggie leads the group inside a subway tunnel. Negan protests the tunnel is prone to flooding and they don't know what they'll find inside, but he is overruled since they desperately need the food. The group comes upon a large amount of wrapped up walkers that have their necks cut so deep they are unable to make any vocal noises. When Gage is attacked by one, Negan goes to save him, but he himself is nearly overwhelmed by a particularly large walker.
After Negan defeats the walker, he realizes nobody was willing to help him and simply watched him struggle. Negan finally loses his temper, accusing Maggie of only asking him to join the mission to have an excuse to kill him, and letting her personal hatred of him cloud her leadership abilities. Maggie protests that they must keep moving to get the food supplies, but eventually, Negan snaps at her that he won't die like a dog - like Glenn did. Daryl knocks him to the floor and Maggie warns Negan to not test her.
At the Commonwealth's auditing center, Eugene, Ezekiel, Yumiko, and Princess endure hours of questioning. Most questions relate to their lives before the Fall, but others are mundane and useless. Ezekiel snarks at General Mercer, who has been sitting in on their sessions and asks if he's a power-tripping cop, offending the stoic man. Ezekiel erupts into a violent coughing fit that quickly silences him, however. During a lunch, the four try to keep their stories straight, and Princess says she's noticed two guards sneaking out to have sex with each other at regular intervals, suggesting they use them as an attempt at an escape. Eugene tries to insist the group stay, but when another person is forcibly dragged back for further questioning, agrees they must go.
Yumiko and Eugene disguise themselves as guards to escort Ezekiel and Princess out, but when they're on the cusp of escaping, Princess notices a photo of Yumiko on the "wall of the disappeared". Yumiko realizes that her brother Tomi may be in the Commonwealth, and the group agrees to stay for her sake.
Back in the tunnel, the group realizes that Gage - who had earlier been swayed by Negan's arguments to leave the tunnel - and Roy have gone missing, along with their bag of guns and ammo. A swarm of walkers arrives, forcing the group to flee up and over a train car. Negan is the second to last to climb to safety, with Maggie trying to climb up after him. However, when she begins losing her grip and asks for help, Negan hesitates, but ultimately leaves her to whatever fate has in store for her with the walkers below.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Maggie says the Reapers took over her former home, Meridian - and begins leading a group to take it back.
- Ambiguous Time Period: Eugene begins listing the specific years he lived at a specific zip code, all the way up until 1996. He is not able to list the last year he lived at a specific zip code, which presumably would’ve been when the apocalypse began, to keep the exact time and date of the series’s present day ambiguous.
- As You Know: When discussing her people, Maggie makes a point to say "my people, the Wardens" to introduce her group's name to the audience, when the characters present would already know that.
- Berserk Button:
- Negan loses his temper when he sees that nobody tried to help him against the large walker, and vents his frustration about how he’s being treated.
- Daryl has his pushed when Negan cruelly mocks Glenn’s death at his hands and punches him - fitting, since Daryl has presumably still blamed himself for Glenn’s death all these years and even after Maggie assured him it wasn’t his fault.
- Book Ends:
- In the pilot, “God forgive us” was written as a suicide note in the abandoned home Rick found. In this episode, “If there is a God he will have to beg for my forgiveness” is written on the wall in the tunnel.
- Daryl finds a discarded plush bunny, as the walker child did during the Cold Open of the series.
- Both Sides Have a Point:
- Negan points out that going through the tunnel is an extremely dangerous course of action and that they should just wait for the storm to pass as opposed to potentially wasting time going through a tunnel to a dead end. He also rants, not without merit, about how he is not being treated as a team member despite having agreed to join the mission, as evidenced by how no one helped him against a walker.
- Maggie points out that they cannot afford to waste time due to the critically low food supplies at Alexandria; and while it’s never said, she has every right to still hate Negan for everything he did. Daryl also tells Negan he’s still not his friend despite accepting him as a tentative ally. Furthermore, Negan chose to return to Alexandria, knowing that Maggie would likely eventually try to kill him, so this was his choice to tough it out.
- Blatant Lies:
- Ezekiel lies that he is cancer free and is quickly proven wrong when he has a coughing fit.
- Eugene says he’s a fundamentally honest person, which hasn’t always been the case as anyone who watched Seasons 4 and 5 can attest - even though these days he is.
- Continuity Nod:
- The season begins with a nearly dialogue-free Cold Open, much like Season 3.
- Maggie’s group, as established by “Home Sweet Home”, are aware of Negan’s murder of Glenn in Season 7’s “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be”, and Negan references it himself.
- Daryl punches Negan for taunting about his murder of Glenn. In that episode, Daryl punching Negan was what caused Negan to decide to go ahead and kill Glenn to further punish the group for Daryl’s outburst.
- The Alexandrian council members are reduced to Gabriel and Aaron, following the deaths of Siddiq and Laura in Season 10’s “Open Your Eyes” and “Stalker”.
- Eugene reminds his party that Michonne had a hardline ban on outside people during the second Time Skip of Season 9.
- Decomposite Character: With the departure of Danai Gurira as Michonne, Yumiko takes her character’s place as the character who recognizes a long-lost relative is living in the Commonwealth.
- Description Cut: Gabriel breaks up a fight between two Alexandrians, insisting there’s enough food for everyone. The scene then cuts to a later meeting in the church when Gabriel announces the food supplies will only last a week.
- For Want Of A Nail: A single drop of blood from Daryl is able to wake up a walker and subsequently awaken the entire room’s worth.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Negan is barely tolerated when he joins the mission to Meridian for understandable reasons. He is only accepted due to his knowledge of how to navigate Washington, D.C. Daryl outright tells him despite their working together, they’re still not friends. Nobody even tries to help him when he tries saving Gage, which finally causes him to lose his temper.
- Gentle Giant: Duncan, one of the Wardens, is friendly and affectionate towards Hershel, showing he has a good relationship with the boy.
- Hypocrite: Calling Negan a dick is pretty rich coming from Gage who bullied Lydia, last season.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Ezekiel has a coughing fit to the point he coughs up blood.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Negan accurately points out that Maggie’s intention bringing him along was to ultimately have a chance to kill him away from Alexandria, and that their path through the tunnel is extremely risky. Gage agrees, even lampshading that “he’s a dick, but he makes sense”.
- Kick the Dog: Negan finally crosses the line when he taunts Maggie about how Glenn died - at his own hands, no less.
- Meaningful Name: “Acheron” was the river of death in Greek mythology, and crossing it was a Point of No Return. A fitting title for the season premiere of the final season of the show.
- Mythology Gag: In an example that may be Foreshadowing, Princess makes a flirty greeting towards Mercer, who scoffs and quickly leaves. In the comics, they became an Official Couple.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Cooper Andrews (Jerry) and Callan McAuliffe (Alden) as of this episode are added to the opening credits.
- Shout-Out: A Commonwealth trooper tells the disguised Yumiko and Eugene to “move along”.
- Suddenly Voiced: Elijah speaks for the first time.
- Take That!: Ezekiel derides Mercer, believing he was an asshole cop before the apocalypse and outright compares the Commonwealth’s tactics to fascism.
- Touché: Eugene is against leaving the Commonwealth’s processing until a man is dragged kicking and screaming to re-processing. That’s enough for him to hurriedly agree the group needs to flee.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Negan loses his temper when he sees nobody tried to help him when he was struggling against a large walker.
- What You Are in the Dark: Negan has a chance to save Maggie, but ultimately refuses and leaves without her, leaving her to hang perilously over the walkers.
